If one draws a map of Bryan Forbes' directorial career it is obvious that it went through a winning streak that ended in less than ten years. Once an actor, Forbes declared in an interview that an actor had to have "arrogance, conceit… I would never have made it as an actor, but I still have conceit." Unfortunately this conceit was probably the cause that led him from solid dramas to concoctions as «Deadfall», a crime melodrama with a touch of James Bond's gymnastics among the rich in Mallorca, set to John Barry's ponderous score. The effort turned out to be a hard fall. Forbes was also a fine screenwriter, and he signed scripts for others, as Guy Green's «The Angry Silence», Seth Holt's «Station Six-Sahara», and 1964's «Of Human Bondage» (a troubled production with three directors, including Forbes for a week), as well as his own, all resulting in good movies: «The L-Shaped Room», «Séance on a Wet Afternoon», «King Rat», «The Wrong Box» and «The Whisperers». But then came this international project based of a novel by Desmond Cory and produced by American Paul Monash, and Forbes gave his wife Nanette Newman (a good actress) a small role with top credit, and led her through embarrassing scenes (as dancing proto-disco in a millionaire's villa), he gave composer Barry carte blanche (including a quite visible role as orchestra conductor), and --inspired by the James Bond craze and by Cory's flair for secret agents' tales-- he entered the territory of male chauvinistic fantasies, with a leading character Henry Clarke (Michael Caine) who is a bland, homophobic fool endowed with abilities beyond any human being's (except Bond, Dracula, or Cory's own Johnny Fedora, of course). Forbes had used incredibility in realistic plots since his first movie, «Whistle Down the Wind», a fable among children (almost ruined by Malcolm Arnold's score), which worked for its good performances and the sincere portrayal of children's innocence. This time, taken or not from Cory's novel, the script contains no innocence at all, and has instead a parade of peculiar characters with secret agendas, all in a single plot: a romantic thief, an adulterous wife, a homosexual husband, an alcoholic millionaire, an ill-mannered gay hustler, a British informer lost in Mallorca, an aspiring actress or whatever she wants to do in films… not to mention a Polish actor passing for a Spanish doctor. Of all the actors portraying these people, Eric Portman is the best thing in the movie, because Caine and Giovanna Ralli are unconvincing as lovers, with no evident chemistry between the two. Newman, David Buck and Carlos Pierre all look pretty, while Barry overflows the proceedings with sickly sweet violins and guitars. They were all now in the international spotlight and that was good for them, because in spite of its shortcomings and excessive running time, «Deadfall» somehow worked, thanks to Forbes I guess, who followed this with another balloon filled with stars, «The Madwoman of Chaillot»… which was not an improvement at all. He had to wait until 1975 for the fine «The Stepford Wives» which was undeservedly besieged by confused feminists and William Goldman.

Henry Stuart Clarke (Michael Caine) is a cat burglar who has his work down to a fine art. While under cover in a retreat for recovering alcoholics, he is approached by an alluring woman Fé Moreau who has a proposition for him, he's suspicious but agrees to meet her aging husband, Richard,(Eric Portman)himself a professional burglar who is now struggling to pull off the big jobs due to his age. Together they agree to pull off a seemingly impossible heist. Derided on its initial release, Forbes' film is nonetheless an interesting if slow film, especially if you like films of its ilk, its also beautifully filmed and makes wonderful use of the stunning Spanish setting, it also has a memorable score by the great John

I knew if I came to the IMDb there would be the usual litany of "neglected gem" "undiscovered masterpiece" "not as bad as you've heard" that every bad and awful movie seems to get. No comprende, I'm afraid. This thing was critically lambasted and the public that bothered to see it hated it. Why? Because it STINKS. Bad script, pretentious and unnecessarily arty direction, a terrible performance by its female lead, and I could go on but why bother. This is part of a three Caine DVD release from Fox, and they're three of the worst movies ever made - I'm sure when I go look up the other two - Peeper and The Magus - that there will be more of "neglected gem" "undiscovered masterpiece" "not as bad as you've heard" from the great unwashed or the film school pedants. I mean, sorry, this is a BAD movie.

Bryan Forbes is an underrated director, almost forgotten today for a string of well reviewed films that ended with this one. The good reviews did that is. Perhaps at the time the direction seemed "overboard" but by today's standards of course it is merely stylish. It features lots of interesting camera angles, almost like a Joseph Losey film at times visually, and a lot of well written dialog.Caine is very good. He played a series of almost expressionless villains and near-villains in the late 1960's. This roll is one of those, crook who falls for the wrong woman, deals but he totally sells it. Even the tone of his voice is different than you'd expect. He also gets to display both surprise and rage towards the end which gives the character more of a place to go than in the more highly regarded say Harry Palmer films and the soon to be made and good but over rated GET CARTER. He really makes the film work.The odd character relationships also help a great deal as does John Barry's music. Fans of his probably know the main robbery scene is inter cut with a specially composed piece of pseudo classical music he wrote and which the scene was edited to later. It's a fascinating sequence and not like anything else Barry ever composed and worth watching for any fan of film music, meaning music in a film connected and interacting with it, not just as a CD to buy and enjoy. The whole score has a touch of the Spanish setting the film lushly invokes. You do have to ignore the lyrics and slightly heard it before nature of the Title song.This is not an action crime film, more of a corrupted souls and the crimes they commit type of approach with an interesting Spanish setting. It's disguised film noir with realistic occasionally funny dialog and cool oddball sinister angles and editing choices that maybe play better today than at the time. Well worth watching, but good luck finding it.